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Yifu Zhu

Publications and source records attributed to Yifu Zhu.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

Copropagating superluminal and slow light manifested by electromagnetically assisted nonlinear optical processes.

We report an experimental observation of nonlinear optical gain and loss assisted by electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) and simultaneous superluminal and subluminal light propagations. Two circular components of a linearly polarized light initiate third-order nonlinear processes in which one circular component is attenuated while the other component is amplified in a three-level EIT system. Near the atomic resonance, the attenuated circular component experiences steep normal dispersion and propagates with a slow group velocity, while the amplified circular component experiences steep anomalous dispersion and propagates with a superluminal group velocity.

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Slow-light six-wave mixing at low light intensities.

We report an experimental study of resonant six-wave mixing in coherently prepared Rb atoms. Electromagnetically induced transparency in a four-level atomic system suppresses the linear susceptibility and enhances the nonlinear susceptibilities, which leads to the resonantly enhanced, slow-photon six-wave mixing at low light intensities. The light emission in the six-wave mixing process can be viewed as resulting from diffraction of slow light off a resonant nonlinear grating induced in the four-level system by a standing-wave pump field.

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Observation of large Kerr nonlinearity at low light intensities.

We report an experimental observation of large Kerr nonlinearity with vanishing linear susceptibilities in coherently prepared four-level rubidium atoms. Quantum coherence and interference manifested by electromagnetically induced transparency suppress the linear susceptibilities and greatly enhance the nonlinear susceptibilities at low light intensities. The measured Kerr nonlinearity is comparable in magnitude to the linear dispersion in a simple two-level system and is several orders of magnitude greater than the Kerr nonlinearity of a conventional three-level scheme under similar conditions.

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Efficient hyper-Raman scattering in resonant coherent media.

We propose and analyze a hyper-Raman scheme for generation of coherent light in a five-level atomic system based on electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). We show that EIT suppresses linear and nonlinear photon absorption and enables the hyper-Raman process to proceed through real, near-resonant intermediate states. The scheme greatly enhances hyper-Raman efficiency and may be used for generating short-wavelength radiation at low pump intensities.

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